Why are doctors and patients still at war over M.E.? How the best treatment for the debilitating con

[charles shepherd]

The article covers a FULL PAGE in the print edition of the Daily Mail

There is a copy of the print version on MEA Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/meassociation/

CS

 

[TiredSam]

This article confirms what I have always said about the Daily Mail - a champion of truth, justice, and common sense. My only slight quibble is that GDS was incorrectly described as a 'disgusting old fat neo-liberal hypocrite' instead of a 'disgusting old fart neo-liberal hypocrite', but I suppose sloppy inattention to detail can even rear it's ugly head in the pages of the DM occasionally.

Background info on Jerome Burne, including his contact details, if anyone wants it:

https://jeromeburne.com

JB is one of a very small number of investigative health journalists here in the UK who is keen to cover ME/CFS stories - when a suitable occasion arises - and to include the patient viewpoint

It would not do any harm to show approval for the article he has written for the Daily Mail today…

CS

I just tried clicking on his contact link to send him a polite thank-you, unfortunately the contact box won't load. Perhaps the server has been crashed by grateful M.E. sufferers.

 

[JohnCB]

I'm not a fan of the Daily Mail and probably never will be, but we do need to judge this article on the basis of its content. I'm delighted to see the article and I am pleased it's is in a high circulation paper.

I am a little intrigued that a new (to me) concept has arisen in this thread -

*** Shooting the message because you don't like the messenger. ***

 

[TiredSam]

It may be worth remembering that Jerome Burne is a freelance journalist who offers pieces to whichever paper might be interested. It would be nice to see this piece in the Guardian maybe but the Guardian seems to have a pretty hypocritical position these days.

Quite. Pure speculation of course, but the article may have been offered to some far higher quality papers we'd have preferred to see it in but they didn't want it, in which case it's a pleasant surprise to see that there is another use for the Daily Mail besides wiping my dog's arse with.

 

[user9876]

Im generally allergic to anything involving the DM ive retweeted the MEA page where they have copied the article in full. I think it is excellent to have got something like this in the DM which because it will register with the general public - some people who are fairly neutral still get the mail because of all the non politics stuff it has (yes I know but not everyone is clued up on politics) I think the government persuasion of politicians are also likely to pick up on this so maybe a good article to use in any contact with conservative MPs.

I get the impression that the mail online is very driven by getting views (hence controversial headlines) so it can be useful for people to look at the mail pages so that they see an interested audience.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I just tried clicking on his contact link to send him a polite thank-you, unfortunately the contact box won't load. Perhaps the server has been crashed by grateful M.E. sufferers.

I have emailed him to say Sam (and others) is appreciative.

 

[Tally]

Daily newspapers have comments boxes that tend to get filled up with all sorts of nonsense every time and I would be surprised if commenting this made a lot of difference.

Quality actually isn't important. The reason why comments matter on online publications is because it's one way to show the advertisers how many views their ads will get, and how engaged the audience is (just showing the ad is not enough, they want engaged audience that will click on it). It's not like in the old days when it was obvious what the circulation of newspapers was and how many were sold. Today advertisers have to use different metrics to gauge where best to display their ads.

Advertisers want to publish ads on sites with more comments so newspapers choose articles that will get more comments.

 

[user9876]

Quality actually isn't important. The reason why comments matter on online publications is because it's one way to show the advertisers how many views their ads will get, and how engaged the audience is (just showing the ad is not enough, they want engaged audience that will click on it). It's not like in the old days when it was obvious what the circulation of newspapers was and how many were sold. Today advertisers have to use different metrics to gauge where best to display their ads.

Advertisers want to publish ads on sites with more comments so newspapers choose articles that will get more comments.

The other thing to do is to click through on ads then the analytics may suggest they could cover more of the same.

 

[NelliePledge]

Daily newspapers have comments boxes that tend to get filled up with all sorts of nonsense every time and I would be surprised if commenting this made a lot of difference. But I am not trying to put anyone off.

There are some pretty good comments on there and one person even commented on it that the comments were interesting quite a few of us from PR have commented which has added some useful context and challenged the odd dodgy comment

 

[Marco]

I'm not a fan of the Daily Mail and probably never will be, but we do need to judge this article on the basis of its content. I'm delighted to see the article and I am pleased it's is in a high circulation paper.

I am a little intrigued that a new (to me) concept has arisen in this thread -

*** Shooting the message because you don't like the messenger. ***

Indeed. Guardian reading medics will probably now double down on defending PACE as a matter of principle.

 

[Neunistiva]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/897509472398057472

 

[NelliePledge]

thats unfortunate - possibly edited out Dr Ron Davis? or saved it for a follow up article? @Jonathan Edwards @charles shepherd may have some knowledge?

 

[Invisible Woman]

thats unfortunate - possibly edited out Dr Ron Davis? or saved it for a follow up article? @Jonathan Edwards @charles shepherd may have some knowledge?

could even have been an editorial decision.

 

[BurnA]

The reason why comments matter on online publications is because it's one way to show the advertisers how many views their ads will get, and how engaged the audience is (just showing the ad is not enough, they want engaged audience that will click on it).

I would be surprised if comments had much to do with this.
Google analytics tells you exactly everything you need to know about the visitors to a webpage.
Google adsense will control what ads you see or else an advertiser will do a deal directly with a website to advertise on specific pages.

 

[Londinium]

thats unfortunate - possibly edited out Dr Ron Davis? or saved it for a follow up article? @Jonathan Edwards @charles shepherd may have some knowledge?

Part of my spouse's job is to write copy that explains scientific concepts to a lay audience. As part of that she'll often have to interview multiple scientists and choose which quotes best give a broad overview of the topic in the limited space available. That means some interviews won't be used: that doesn't mean she disagrees with their views or disregards their work - it's just a necessary part of the work of any professional writer.

 

[Londinium]

In short, sending angry tweets to a writer that's just written an excellent overview of the topic just because he omitted an interview seems massively counterproductive.

 

[Tally]

I would be surprised if comments had much to do with this.
Google analytics tells you exactly everything you need to know about the visitors to a webpage.
Google adsense will control what ads you see or else an advertiser will do a deal directly with a website to advertise on specific pages.

They really do. I had a website. Google adsense is only one advertiser, there are others to choose from. I used wordpress as advertiser and would get approached by smaller advertisers giving me offers and asking me to prove how successful my site is.

Google analytics stats are a private thing between site owner and Google. Site owner can tell the advertiser or screenshot their stats, but there is no way to prove it. They could be lying or photoshopping. Google doesn't want to help with that because they don't want to share their data with competition.

So when you enter into negotations you use things like comments which are visible to third party.

If one is a big client, which I assume Mail Online is, they can even attempt to get google to pay them per view instead of per click. Or renegotiate price based on offer from other advertisers.

Then there is more technical details, like Google measures time spent on page when deciding how to rank it in SERP and leaving a comment takes time.

I am not saying it makes a huge difference, I mean there are sites that don't even have option to comment, but it does matter some.

 

[wdb]

The article covers a FULL PAGE in the print edition of the Daily Mail

There is a copy of the print version on MEA Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/meassociation/

CS

For the lazy

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

For the lazy

View attachment 23100

or this

 

[PhoenixDown]

The issue: the best way to treat ME. This has huge significance for the estimated 500,000 people in Britain affected by it.

500,000? Just where are they getting these figures from? There's no way that many people have ME, chronic fatigue maybe but not ME.